


A Condition to be Human

by Eliante



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Empathy, Friendship, Gen, Magic, Pre-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, Skyhold (Dragon Age), Spirits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 07:09:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26469226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eliante/pseuds/Eliante
Summary: An honest exchange between a spirit and a human; Cole helps Cassandra to face her feelings. (slightly dark thoughts)DAI in-game conversation spoiler, but no Trespasser spoilers.
Relationships: Cole & Cassandra Pentaghast
Kudos: 5





	A Condition to be Human

**Author's Note:**

> **Cassandra** : Cole, I found a locket on my pillow earlier...  
>  **Cole** : It was Anthony's.  
>  **Cassandra** : It was my grandmother's, actually, but it had Anthony's portrait inside. I thought I'd lost it.  
>  **Cole** : You did lose it. I had to fight a rat for it.  
>  **Cassandra** : Oh? Thank you.  
>  **Cole** : He wasn't a very big rat.
> 
> (Original Game conversation.)

The battlements at night with the moon and stars shining onto the bricked outer wall were a peaceful place. No one ever walked around there during this time, unless, like Cassandra, they needed a moment to themselves. Sitting on the lowered edge, with her back against the fields outside of Skyhold, she looked straight into the stronghold’s inner court. While the outer side was lit by the moonlight so brightly, Cassandra stared into the inner dark abyss.  
To calm a mind after all that the Inquisition was going through was the real challenge. She did not have any time for it but at night; and even at night she had no time for it because she needed to sleep. These feelings were too much; they were to be contained and only unlocked when there was time for them. But sometimes, someone prematurely stole the key and unlocked them... and then there was no going back.

Her fist brought forward, the fingers unlocked and revealed a golden locket, the attached necklace left hanging past her palm into the air. Maybe it would have been better if she had lost it for good, maybe her pain would have been lost with it as well.  
“ _Why do humans hold onto such pain so dearly?_ ”  
Cassandra looked towards where the voice sprawling her thoughts came from and saw Cole standing at the door not far from her. He had walked to her from the other side of the battlements, where he sometimes spent his nights staring at the sky, following the thoughts that lead people into their dreams. At the sight of the other her hand formed a gentle embrace around the locket again. 

“So much hurt, claw marks on everything that tries to escape. Don’t leave; don’t leave me! Like it’s the very condition to be human.” He came forward to her as he spoke, standing in front of the sitting woman who did not move, who even looked away from him, back to the safety of the abyss.  
“Why did you have to find it?” she asked in a bitter tone, weakly.  
“It belongs to you, not the rat.” he explained, astonished at having to justify his actions. No other outcome made sense to him, the Seeker had to get back what belonged to them.

“I’ve told you, it belonged to my grandmother.” she insisted, a lecturing tone finding its way in.  
“Your grandmother wanted you to have it. And Anthony wanted you to have it, so that you could remember him.”  
Cassandra’s eyes closed at the memory and fingers clasped around the locket tightly, clung to it like to hope, so desperately that she was afraid to break it. She released the hardened grip and only loosely held her fingers around it. Her eyes came to look at it again. It was still closed, the thoughts remained safely inside.

“The memory... it will never leave me.” she spoke with fatigue in her soul.  
“Some things you take with you to your grave. They are meant to stay with you.” Cole comforted her in the way of a spirit, but for a human, the words had a different ring to it. Guilt, shame, ... yearning.  
“I remember his head sliding off his shoulders. Though I have seen it in battle many times, after that it was never quite the same.”  
“ _That is a human being. They killed a human being. They kill one another and laugh about it!_ ” Cole’s voice resonated in her, filled her insides, his tone expressing the pain better than she ever could.  
“Yes. Yes...” She sighed heavily and stashed the fist into her pocket, releasing the necklace to be stored inside. Then she leaned forward, hands grasping to hold one another as the arms leaned propped up on her thighs. “Something changed for me back then. Even hunting dragons was not the same anymore. Every being hurts, I thought.”  
“ _And I hurt the most, because I am left without you._ ”  
“Stop!” she commanded harshly and the young man was taken aback by it, looking at her in shock. A second later she shook her head at her own reaction.

“I’m... sorry. I forget that you don’t mean it out of spite.” As she apologized her hand ran up to her face, covering it, like she tried to cover all of the feelings to regain control.  
“You can let go. You don’t have to hide them.” Cole said and crouched down to be on one level with her, tilting his head as he looked up at her face.  
“No. I have to. You don’t understand. There was so much I should have told him. I could have protected him! There is so much left, but he is gone.” She kept her hand at her face for another moment, then it lowered and she looked in front of her, eyes meeting the man’s gaze only slowly. But they left to come back to rest in the abyss. The compulsion was strong and she needed to retain her feelings. But they slowly dripped out of her one by one and threatened to destroy her strength. They threatened to linger, to swirl around her like a veil of magic in times when she least needed them; to gnaw on her confidence when she slaughtered an enemy. To keep her marked forever. To never let Anthony escape into the netherworld, to always keep him tied to earth, to her. The branding on her soul burned, an invisible fire consumed her.

“Cole...?” she asked unsure, shattered as she saw tears flowing down his cheeks without a sound. Though his expression showed pain, he remained silent, his voice only interrupted by minor breaks of emotion.  
“The hurt is strong. You held it locked away for too long.” His eyes closed for a moment, tears falling harder, before he opened them again but kept looking at her with determination. A sense of agony clung to his words as he continued speaking.  
“I will feel your pain for you. It will hurt, but you will be free.”  
“It will come back. It always comes back.“ Cassandra confessed, breathing out heavily as she looked right past him into the courtyard, not daring to face his eyes.  
“Then you will face it again. And you will be made free again.” he encouraged her.

The Seeker’s eyes shut tight, and her face showed signs of sorrow, doubts creeping into her bones, a heavy sense of fear shaking her being. She started to wonder if her whole life was a lie, if nothing but this pain existed and she had only been too scared to face it.  
“No.” Cole answered empathetically to her thoughts, reaching a hand out to touch hers resting in her lap which made her eyes swing open.  
  
The second he reached her, the fingers brushing and laying against her gloves, a stream of light ran past the fabric to her hands, past the skin to her soul. She felt warmth, then a shudder at the intensity, then clarity in her thoughts. Light flashed brightly before her eyes and with it emerged all the memories of those she had lost. Her grandmother, the locket that was given to her as a present, the smile on her face, a young Cassandra who ran around shouting out proudly to little Anthony that she had gotten a present. The grim face that Anthony made when he saw Cassandra flying by in excitement had quickly vanished as his father came to lift him up to his shoulder and whisper a secret to his ear, about how he would be the greatest dragon hunter in all of Thedads one day. And Anthony smiled, laughed even, imagining himself as a slayer of fearful creatures - not knowing how that very fate was slinging a rope around his neck, predestining him to die for his cause. 

All the wondrous memories of the past came to her at once, happy and sad faces passing her by one after another, looking at her with nothing but love and understanding. It was about to push her to the verge, threatening to break her open. The beauty of life was intimidating, there was so many feelings to experience, yet so little time to go through them consciously. Then a time came to face them all, so sudden and so intense that one was struck by them and thrown into the ground.

Thunder broke into the dark sky and Cassandra gasped as she came back to the present moment. Instinctively she looked up, waiting for the lightning to follow. With no trace left behind, the hand that had been resting on hers was cautiously pulled away. Cole closed his eyes for a moment, wiping the tears left on him with the back of his hand, then came up to stand.  
“Let’s go inside. The rain washes everything away. Tomorrow we begin anew.”


End file.
